Preface Standards development within the Information Technology sector is harmonized with international standards development. Through the CSA Technical Committee on Information Technology (TCIT), Canadians serve as the SCC Mirror Committee (SMC) on ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology (ISO/IEC JTC1) for the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), the ISO member body for Canada and sponsor of the Canadian National Committee of the IEC. Also, as a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Canada participates in the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (ITU-T). For brevity, this Standard will be referred to as \"CAN/CSA-ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288\" throughout. This Standard replaces CAN/CSA-ISO/IEC 15288-09 (adoption of ISO/IEC 15288:2008). At the time of publication, ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015 is available from ISO and IEC in English only. CSA Group will publish the French version when it becomes available from ISO and IEC. Scope This International Standard establishes a common framework of process descriptions for describing the life cycle of systems created by humans. It defines a set of processes and associated terminology from an engineering viewpoint. These processes can be applied at any level in the hierarchy of a system\'s structure. Selected sets of these processes can be applied throughout the life cycle for managing and performing the stages of a system\'s life cycle. This is accomplished through the involvement of all stakeholders, with the ultimate goal of achieving customer satisfaction. This International Standard also provides processes that support the definition, control and improvement of the system life cycle processes used within an organization or a project. Organizations and projects can use these processes when acquiring and supplying systems. This International Standard concerns those systems that are man-made and may be configured with one or more of the following system elements: hardware, software, data, humans, processes (e.g., processes for providing service to users), procedures (e.g., operator instructions), facilities, materials and naturally occurring entities. When a system element is software, the software life cycle processes in ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2015 may be used to implement that system element. The two standards are harmonized for concurrent use on a single project or in a single organization.